The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on the $17 billion missing from undeclared crude oil and liquefied natural gas exports to global destinations on Tuesday commenced its public hearing into the matter.
Declaring the hearing open, the Speaker of the House, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, said incidence of missing oil money had become a recurring decimal in a sector which is the mainstay of the economy.
Represented by the House Minority Whip, Hon. Yakubu Bade, the Speaker said the National Assembly's interest in investigating the sector stemmed from a deliberate effort to cleanse the industry of the rot which had become the hallmark of its existence over the years.
But curiously, progress of the hearing was hampered by the failure by heads of relevant agencies to turn up or provide for formal representation despite receiving correspondence from the committee.
Individuals who showed up supposedly for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) do not have formal authorisation to represent their chief executives, a situation which infuriated the committee members who refused to have any engagement with them unless their chief executives are present to address areas of interest in the probe.
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